India-set film finds Oscar glory

A film on menstruation, set in rural India, titled Period. End of Sentence, has won the Oscar in the Documentary Short Subject category at the 91st Academy Awards.
Award-winning filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi has directed the short film, which has been co-produced by Indian producer Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment.
The film came into being as a part of The Pad Project, started by students at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton.
“I’m not crying because I’m on my period or anything. I can’t believe a film on menstruation won an Oscar,” Zehtabchi said in her acceptance speech. She also gave a nod to Monga. “Guneet Monga – know that you have been empowering women all over the world fight for menstrual equality,” she added.
Dedicating the award to her school, Berton said the project was born because her students in LA and people in India wanted to make a human rights difference .
While actor Rami Malek received an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading role at the 91st Academy Awards ceremony for portraying the life of late Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody with conviction.
Malek expressed his gratitude to the rock band, thanking them for allowing him to be a “tiny part of your phenomenal history”. He also used his acceptance speech to address struggles of immigrants and the changing times in Hollywood.
“This is a monumental moment. I am so appreciative to all of you, who have had a hand to get me here. People who took a chance on me.
“I may not have been the obvious choice, but I guess it worked out,a said Malek thanking Fox and “everyone who believed in me. It’s something I will treasure for the rest of my life,” the actor said.
The Favourite star Olivia Colman was teary-eyed as she was announced the winner of the Best Actress in a Leading Role category at the 91st Academy Awards, marking her first Oscar. In her acceptance speech, in which she tried to balance her tears with her humour, Colman thanked her costars, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, calling them “the two loveliest women in the world to fall in love with and to work with every day”.
Colman also ensured mentioning how Close was the frontrunner for the award in pre-Oscar talks. “Glenn Close, you’ve been my idol for so long… This is not how I wanted to it,” the British actress said.
While Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron won the Best Director honour for his black-and-white semi-autobiographical film Roma.
It is the second Best Directing Award for Cuaron who had earlier won it for space drama Gravity in 2014.
“I thank the Academy for recognising a film centred on an indigenous woman, one of the 70 million domestic workers without workers’ rights,” Cuaron said at the gala on Sunday night.
He described “Roma” as a film that brings to the fore the sort of character more often relegated to the background in films, “at a time when we are being encouraged to look away”. (Agencies)